The Amazing Race
Season 35, Episodes 4 and 5
By Jim Memmott
Vietnam and India – Infighting looms. The Race is heating up.
Sorry for not posting earlier about Episode 4, an outing in Vietnam that saw the elimination of the front-runners, married entrepreneurs Victor Limary and Jocelyn Chao.
Victor, usually the picture of confidence, was humbled by the final challenge, a needle-in-a-haystack test that asked him to find a tile amongst many that matched the tile pictured in his clue.
Chelsea Day (far right), teammate of her childhood friend, Robbin Tomich, solved the matching puzzle first, and her team won the episode. She finished what had been a marathon day, as the Racers had kept on racing at the end of the previous episode, no break in between.
In a bit of foreshadowing, Race producers left in a moment where Chelsea didn’t help a competitor, Anna Leigh Wilson. Drum roll please. There could be revenge in Episode 6 when the Racers have to invoke a U-Turn, forcing one team to do two detours, not just one.
Along the way in Episode 4, teams could either arrange a lot of fish – some still alive. Or they could lug mattresses – four in total – up several flights of stairs, a brutal assignment on a hot day.
Ashlie Martin (left) hurt her finger during the mattress carry. Hence the tough love from husband Todd. “That’ll be OK,” he told her. “I’ve broken my fingers all the time.”
One bit of history in the episode: Joel Strasser reflecting on the fact that 50 years, circumstances were different when his uncle had been in Vietnam as a U.S. soldier.
For Episode 5, the racers flew to Jaipur, India, the Pink City. They were all on the same flight, a switch from earlier episodes in which they ended up on different planes.
The Roadblock required one Racer from each team to do a choreographed dance while head-balancing three pots.
Producers focused on Corey McArthur, who didn’t have the right head for the task. The pots kept slipping. Not to worry. He and his father, Rob, survived.
The Detour offered two choices. One seemed easy, as it asked racers to put together two small cloth dolls. There were some hammered fingers, and Morgan Franklin (near left) almost poked out her sister Lena’s eye with a needle. But still, it wasn’t that hard.
The Racers who didn’t do the dolls had to dress exactly as figures in a mural. It meant for a lot of running around and costume altering and precise matching, as in the tile test in the earlier episode. The Franklin sisters started the challenge, kept getting it wrong, switched to the dolls, and still lived to race another day. Barely.
In a dramatic rickshaw race to the finish, Lena and Morgan edged out the engaged couple, Joe Moskowitz and Ian Todd, who were thus eliminated, taking Dennis Doell and Julio Ferreira out of the pool. Alas, we hardly knew them. (The upside is that Dennis and Julio get their entry fee waived.)
Anna Leigh and her dad, Steve Cargile, won the leg. They’re on a roll, having finished first, second and first in the last three legs.
Overheards
Episode 4:
Rob McArthur: It’s gonna be a long day.
Steve Cargille: We are making a mess with some fish.
Victor Limary: I know my fish; I sell fish every day.
Episode 5:
Robbin Tomich: Hopefully, we’re not in anyone’s mouth when we get to the U-Turn.
John Franklin: Back in high school and college, I did a little breakdancing.
Anna Leigh Wilson: We could be first, or we could be dead last.
Order of Finish, Episode 5
Steve Cargile and Anna Leigh Wilson, father and daughter
Greg and John Franklin, brothers
Joel Strasser and Garrett Smith, best friends
Andrea Simpson and Malaina Hatcher, college friends
Todd and Ashlie Martin, married, high school sweethearts
Corey and Rob McArthur, son and father
Robbin Tomich and Chelsea Day, childhood best friends
Liam and Yeremi Hykel, brothers
Morgan and Lena Franklin, sisters
Eliminated
Episode 4: Jocelyn Chao and Victor Limary, married
Episode 5: Joe Moskowitz and Ian Todd, engaged
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